'Thrivers' of past disasters help Sandy survivors

Nov. 14, 2012
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An estimated eight tons of donations, valued at approximately $250,000, were collected in just six days as part of the St. Tammany Train of Hope initiative in Louisiana. / By Kim Bergeron for USA TODAY

"All of us were reliving some of the things that we all personally went through" in the 2005 storm, says O'Daniels, CEO of Louisiana's St. Tammany Parish Tourist and Convention Commission. "It was hard, but the flip side of that is it feels so incredible to be able to do something and know that these people really appreciate it."

Three days after Sandy plowed ashore on the East Coast, O'Daniels and her friend Kim Bergeron, who works for the city of Slidell, La., decided when they saw Sandy's devastation that they had to help. They started a drive that collected about 8 tons of donated food, clothes and other basic supplies and arranged to haul it to New Jersey on Amtrak's Crescent train, which they dubbed the "Train of Hope."

They arrived on Saturday afternoon and later helped distribute badly needed items in Hoboken and Bayonne before moving on to hard-hit Staten Island. People who live in Sandy's path know that Louisianans understand their pain, O'Daniels says. "They understand that we've been there, done that," she says. "There's very much a personal connection that we feel with them."

Tim Occhipinti, a Hoboken city councilman who helped coordinate transportation and distribution of the goods that arrived on the Train of Hope, was amazed by the generosity of Louisiana residents. "We're complete strangers to them, and for them to put this together for us, it's an amazing feeling," he says. "The Katrina victims paying it forward to the Sandy victims is part of their healing process as well."

Occhipinti runs a non-profit group, Hoboken Volunteers, which is helping to distribute aid.

Survivors of other natural disasters across the country feel the same impulse to reach out:

-- After a lethal tornado leveled parts of Joplin, Mo., in May 2011, a Texas organization sent a big shipping container outfitted as a medical clinic to the Joplin Family Worship Center. Two volunteers drove it from Joplin to Gospel Assembly Church on New York's Coney Island, along with coats, sleeping bags, diapers and other donated supplies. It arrived Friday.

"When I saw the challenges being faced in New York and the East Coast, my heart hurt," says Dan Wermuth, the Family Worship Center's pastor. "People of faith have the ability to respond in disaster and build a bridge for folks to make it from survivor to thriver."

-- In March, a tornado destroyed most of Henryville, Ind., including its schools. Troy Albert, principal of the town's junior-senior high school, challenged students to raise money to help two schools damaged by Sandy. He says he knew those communities "were just going to be struggling and they needed a ray of hope."

Donations from the community and Henryville students totaled $1,300, and more was collected Tuesday through "hat day" at school: For a $1 donation, students could wear a hat all day. After the tornado, "we accepted the help from others," Albert says. "We realize the power that comes from doing that for somebody else in need."

-- After a 1997 flood damaged St. Michael's Catholic Church and School in Grand Forks, N.D., it appealed to other parishes with the same name for aid. St. Michael's in Long Branch, N.J., sent a $12,000 check. The North Dakota church is returning the favor. A second collection at its six Masses on Sunday raised $15,600 that will be sent to the damaged New Jersey church, Pastor Gerard Braun says. "When the challenges are there, many people step up," he says.

The money will be used to help parishioners who lost their homes, says Debbie Patella, development director at the Long Branch church. "It's so heartwarming," she says, that the North Dakota church remembered the help it received 15 years ago.

-- Volunteers with Toomer's for Tuscaloosa, a group formed after an April 2011 tornado struck that Alabama city, are on the East Coast now distributing donated supplies. They plan to organize Thanksgiving dinners for people affected by the storm and Christmas gifts for the area's children.